(녹색성장) 볼리비아 빙산 붕괴 물부족
(녹색성장) 볼리비아 빙산 붕괴 물부족
The UN climate summit that’s going on in Copenhagen got back on track with some global warming star power today. Former vice president Al Gore told the conference that based on new computer models, the arctic ocean could be left with no summer time ice within just five years. Earlier, though, the climate summit talk stalled꼼짝못하다 when delegates from poor countries walked out charging rich nations are not doing enough to cut green house gas emissions while the developing nations are paying the price. A case in point is South America’s poorest country. Jeffrey Coffman reports from Bolivia.
17,000 feet above sea level, you can see climate change up close. Until recently Bolivia’s Chacaltaya glacier was the highest ski area in the world. Ronnie Ibatta began skiing here as a boy in 1962. “What’s happened to the glacier that you’ve skied for so many years?” “Right now. There is nothing. It’s finished.” Here is Chacaltaya in 1980. By 1994, just the peak is covered. By 2005, only two patches remained. The glacier, once hundreds of feet deep, disappeared just a few month ago.
The end of Chacaltaya is about much more than the end of an exotic ski area. This is or was the smallest in a series of glaciers that provide drinking water to millions of people in this part of the world.
And those glaciers, too, are disappearing. Average temperatures here are gone up almost three degrees since 1980. Scientists expect most of the glaciers will be gone in 20 years. And with them, irrigation water관개용수 for farm lands and hydroelectric 수력의power. In Bolivia today, drinking water is such a precious commodity. It is often kept under lock and key.
It is the same story in Arica where the disappearing glaciers of Mountain Kenya jeopardized위태롭게하다 drinking water for 7 million people. Retreating glaciers on Mountain Everest and throughout the Himalayas threaten water supplies for hundreds of millions in China and India and Nepal. One of the reasons why today in Copenhagen, developing nations walked out of the climate change conference. Bolivia’s president Evo Morales told us “industrialized countries have a responsibility to give money to poor countries. So they can respond to a crisis they did not create.” Bolivia can survive without skiing. It cannot survive without water. Jeffrey Coffman, ABC News, Chacaltaya, Bolivia.